God's Love for the Unlovely

How do you know that God loves you? It's a very important question. We all have to ask it. We all eventually will ask it. How do you know that God loves you? The question has two parts. Does God love you? That's the objective part. The subjective is, how do you know? How do you experience that? How do you confirm God's love for you? It's one of the most important questions we all should ask. And it's an important question that eventually we all will ask. Because when we're in the midst of life's trials and difficulties and suffering, we will ask this question. We will ask it when we feel like we are being treated unjustly. We will ask it when things do not go the way we expected. Especially when God is involved. Well, really, He's always involved. You see, we have many good desires. God has placed in us many good desires. A desire for a spouse. That's a good, God-given desire. A desire for a godly spouse. That's a good, God-given desire. A desire for children. A good, godly desire. A desire for obedient children. A good, godly desire. A desire for loving, caring parents. A good, godly desire. When these desires aren't met, We will ask, how do I know God loves me? Because our immediate experience will challenge the truth of the gospel. What we have to be ready with is the gospel. We have to be ready to answer that question with the truth of God's gospel, that the Father loves us and the Son. The message this morning is simple. God loves you. It's a simple message. God loves you. You may feel comfortable now. OK, this is going to be a feel good message. Well, you can hear the message God loves you on the O Channel. This morning, we're going to go a little bit further, because what's so amazing about the gospel is that God loves you even though you are unlovely. The message of the gospel is that God loves us, even though there's nothing lovable about us. God loves us because He loves us, not because we are lovely. That is the message of the gospel. And that's the message we're going to see in Genesis 29. Go ahead and turn there with me. Let's do a little background. Here we have Jacob. He's going to find a wife for himself. He's already stolen the birthright from Esau twice. Once, he won't give his brother any porridge, so he says, until he gives him his birthright. Secondly, whenever Isaac is ready to bless Esau, Jacob's mom dresses him up like Esau, gives him some food, and he steals it again. He's the deceiver. He's the ankle grabber. He flees his family. The family loses him. Esau is out to kill him. And so he is ready to go out to Paddan Aram. until right before Isaac blesses him, finally, as a covenant man, as a faithful man, he finally blesses the right child that God had chosen, not Esau. On the way, he has a very unique revelation from God. He has a dream where a ladder comes down and God says, I will be with you unconditionally. And then Jacob says, well, God, if you give me food, if you give me clothes, If you make sure I come back peacefully, then I'll let you be my God." We see faith starting to work here. We see a glimpse of God's revelation taking place in his heart. But we still see him as a very immature, at best, believer in God's promises. Let's turn now to our first scene. We're going to break it down into five different scenes, as usual. Our first scene is verses 1-14. of chapter 29, and here we see Jacob, he has arrived, he's looking for a wife among his people, and he runs into some shepherds and finds his wife. Read with me, verses 1 through 14. Then Jacob went on his journey and came to the land of the people of the east. As he looked, he saw a well in the field, and behold, three flocks of sheep lying beside it. For out of that well the flocks were watered. The stone in the well's mouth was large, and when all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds rolled the stone from the mouth of the well, and watered the sheep, and put the stone back in its place over the mouth of the well. Jacob said to them, My brothers, where do you come from? They said, We are from Haran. He said to them, Do you know Laban, the son of Nahor? They said, We, we know him. He said to them, Is it well with him? They said, It is well. And see, Rachel, his daughter, is coming with his sheep. He said, Behold, it is still high day. It is not time for the livestock to be gathered together. Water the sheep and go, pasture them. But they said, We cannot until all the flocks are gathered together, and the stone is rolled from the mouth of the well. Then we water the sheep. While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father's sheep, for she was a shepherdess. Now, as soon as Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban, his mother's brother, and the sheep of Laban, his mother's brother, Jacob came near and rolled the stone from the well's mouth and watered the flock of Laban, his mother's brother. Then Jacob kissed Rachel and wept aloud. And Jacob told Rachel that he was her father's kinsman and that he was Rebekah's son. And she ran and told her father. As soon as Laban heard the news about Jacob, His sister's son, he ran to meet him, and embraced him, and kissed him, and brought him to his house. Jacob told Laban all these things, and Laban said to him, Surely you are my bone and my flesh, and he stayed with him a month." Now here we see the grandson of Abram. He's going to find a wife. He's fleeing. He also becomes a pilgrim here in the sense that God calls him to go, but he's fleeing as a fugitive, and he's going to find a wife. Now, there's a lot of similarities and a lot of comparisons and contrasts with the event where Abraham sends a servant to go find a wife for Isaac. You already see that Abraham is much more careful than his son Isaac in securing a wife for his child. Abraham said, do not let my son go back there because he knew what kind of traps were there. He knew about Laban most likely, a great trickster and deceiver. Abraham was afraid for his son to go there because then he would never possibly come back to the promised land, or he didn't know what God would have to do to bring him back in the promised land. We see a couple of different events. One, the son himself goes instead of the servant. Secondly, we see that there is no prayer. There is no asking God for success. God grants success, but there's no credit given to God for success. If it were that servant of Abraham, he prayed for God to give him success, and then he praised God as soon as he received it. Here, God just brings Rachel in quickly and suddenly, just like he brought Rebecca. God provides success. And of course, one of the great similarities is Laban runs out to see what kind of opportunity lies at the well. See, God is with him on this journey, as he promised in the dream, he gives success. And he's sitting there at the well, the local watering hole where you want to meet and greet folk. These shepherds are all sitting around. And it's interesting, Jacob kind of scolds him. Why are you here? You need to go out. Again, he's not really this great of a fellow yet. Early stages of faith at best. But then Rachel comes up in all her beauty with her sheep and a stone that it normally takes an entire group of shepherds to roll. Well, Jacob feels the need to impress her, I guess. He gets that great strength up and he rolls it himself, which is an amazing feat of strength. Maybe this is God giving him success. But then he kisses her and weeps. It's very unusual in the sense that he weeps after this kiss. A family relative, it would have been custom to kiss your sister, your brother, your cousin, as a greeting, like when you do a handshake. So, the kiss isn't as abnormal as the response. He weeps. He has this great emotional response. And, of course, we see Laban. He comes out, as always, in verse 13 to see what kind of things our newest candidate has for him to border with. Let's look at our second scene. Our first scene was God gives Jacob success in finding a wife. Now we see scene 2, verses 15 through 20, Laban strikes a deal with Jacob. Scene 2, 15 through 20, Laban strikes a deal with Jacob. Then Laban said to Jacob, because you are my kinsman, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what should your wages be? Now Laban had two daughters. The name of the elder was Leah and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah's eyes were weak. But Rachel was beautiful in form and appearance. Jacob loved, loved Rachel. And he said, I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter, Rachel. Laban said, it is better that I give her to you than I should give her to any other man. Stay with me. So Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her. Here Laban strikes up a deal. What do you want to get paid for? You shouldn't be a slave or a servant here. I'll pay you while you serve. Well, he knows. He's seen Jacob looking at his daughter. He knows that Rachel is the catch of Haran. And so he already knows what Jacob's going to ask for. He asks for his daughter. Seven years. That's twice the amount of a normal dowry would be. Typically, Laban should actually be sending an inheritance with her, but instead he's actually going to profit from his daughter's wedding. He is seeking to make a profit twice the amount of what he should be giving to her in the dowry. We already see here another sibling rivalry, don't we? You had Jacob and Esau. God chose Jacob. God loved Jacob. He hated Esau. He did not choose Esau. But then he saw in that family, that dysfunctional family of Isaac and Rebekah, that they fought over which one was going to be their favorite. Well, here you already see that hint of a sibling rivalry taking place. The pretty daughter, the daughter with weak eyes. Well, speaking of her vision, the contrast is very clear. Being weak in the eyes is an idiom for she's not that fun to look at. One's pretty, one's ugly. It's that simple. We're not looking at one saying, oh, she couldn't see that far. The other one, well, she was fun to look at. Here we see Jacob has a real love for Rachel. Jacob loves her. Seven years goes by like a day because he loved her. We see maybe here this problem that follows in Isaac's footsteps of an appetite disorder, a fleshly desire, a love that compels you to make bad decisions. Isaac loved the tasty food of his son Esau, and so he made bad decisions based upon that. Here we see Jacob so loving Rachel, I think in an inappropriate way, that he makes bad decisions as well. Scene 3. Jacob loves Rachel, not Leah. 21-30. Then Jacob said to Laban, Give me my wife, that I may go into her. For my time is completed. So Laban gathered together all the people of the place and made a feast. But in the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob. And he went into her. Laban gave his female servant, Zilpah, to the daughter of Leah to be her servant. And in the morning, behold, it was Leah! Exclamation point. And Jacob said to Laban, What is this that you have done to me? Did I not serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me? This is Jacob talking, by the way. Laban said, It is not so done in our country. To give the younger before the firstborn complete the week of this one and we will give you the other also in returning in return for seven serving more me another seven years. Jacob did so and completed her work. Then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife. Laban gave his female servant Bilhah to his daughter Rachel to be her servant. So Jacob went into Rachel also and he loved Rachel more than Leah and served Laban for another seven years. Jacob loves Rachel, not Leah. This is an interesting wedding ceremony. Laban slips into Leah at night. They don't have lights. They don't have electricity. After the great ceremony, after the feast, he slips into Leah, the older daughter, who's going to be harder to marry off. No one's asking about her. And so I believe what's happening here is Laban is saying, you know what, I have an opportunity. I can get by with a two for one, which for him is a good deal. If Leah doesn't get married, she's his responsibility. And so this father flips in the wrong daughter at night. She's thrown in by her father. She probably isn't finding any suitors. Now, imagine this. Leah knows the deal. Leah has been grabbed by her father. Rachel probably hidden away. At night, she's thrown in. How many times do you think Leah heard Rachel's name that night? What do you think Jacob said in the morning when he saw Leah? Imagine the kind of emotional despair that this woman is going through. Her husband. The one that she is now devoted to. The wedding, the covenant has been consummated. It's finished. This is it. He doesn't love her. He loves another woman. Afterward, Jacob goes. He says, Laban, you have deceived me. Now, if he has any inclination of a soul here, he obviously recollects, wait a second. Yeah, this is what my father and my brother felt like. You've deceived me. And as soon as that word rolls off his tongue, he should see what he has done and how he has made his own family feel. The end result of this story is that Leah is not loved by her husband or her father. The father has thrown her in to get rid of her. The husband is dissatisfied with her. No, I'm going to work another seven years to get the one I really want. Jacob loves Rachel. Leah is not wanted. You can go even further in chapter 30 verse 31. Leah was hated. Now, this is the Moses is choosing the clear language to show that there is a Jacob Esau like relationship. Now, hated doesn't mean that anger is boiling against her necessarily. It means that she is not his chosen one. He doesn't have affection for her. He is not going to be devoted to her. Here we see. A husband not committed to his wife. A husband not committed to her well-being. A husband not committed to laying down his life. Or a husband not seeking her good about his own. Here we see Jacob doing the worst thing he could possibly do to his wife. He's ignoring her. He's choosing another woman above her. He neglects her out of a desire for another. Now, this is the key point of the story. This is the key passage. We're going to go on and continue to look at verse 30, chapter 30, before we finish, before we get to the application. But this is the key part of the story. Here we have the tension set up. We have the husband, two wives, one he loves, one he hates. The family problems continue in the covenant family, the family that our salvation is dependent upon. Jacob and Laban, well, they're playing a game of ankle grabbing, of deception. Laban leads the covenant family into polygamy. He leads his own daughters into a polygamous marriage. Laban is also an abusive father. Rachel and Leah, sibling rivalry just gets worse here. Two sisters married to the same man. They most likely have a history of one being loved and one being ignored. And Jacob allows himself to play favorites again. Scene four. God blesses Leah, and Leah praises the Lord. Let's look at verses 31 through 35. When the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb. But Rachel was barren, and Leah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Reuben. For she said, Because the Lord has looked upon my affliction, for now my husband will love me. She conceived again and bore a son and said, Blessed, because the Lord has heard that I am hated, he has given me a son also. And she called his name Simeon. Again, she conceived and bore a son and said, Now this time my husband will be attached to me, because I have borne him three sons. Therefore, his name was called Levi. And she conceived again and bore a son and said, this time I will praise the Lord. Therefore, she called his name Judah. Then she ceased bearing. When the Lord saw that Leah was hated. We see here a God of comfort, and of care, and of love. A God who is looking down on a woman who is not getting the kind of love she deserves from her husband, so He seeks to give her the kind of love that she doesn't deserve. His own love. Here we see Him blessing her with children, and Leah can't get over the idea that these children are going to solve her marriage. These children are going to bring her husband to love her. She's blinded that this is God himself showing her that he loves her. Well, as a side shot here, children don't solve marriage problems as just a basic application here. Moving on, Leah recognizes God as the one who blesses, but her hope is always in her husband through the first three. And it's pretty amazing if we look at the lineage that comes from her. She is the mother of Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah. That means she's the great-grandmother or the heir of the life of Moses and David and Jesus. This is a woman blessed with a great lineage and genealogy. That's quite the all-star team of Scripture there. Moses and David and Jesus. That's such a blessing to her that the Savior himself came from her line, Judah. Now, the focus here really should be on the last son. The one where she stops hoping for her husband's affection, and she just stops and says, I will praise the Lord. I believe here she is just stopping, hoping for her husband's affection, and she just says, you know what? God's love is great. I'm going to praise Him. I'm going to be satisfied in Him. My desires are fully delighted in Him. A huge change takes place in the naming of the sons and her response to God's giving her children. Let's finish the chapter out. I'm sorry, Genesis 30 now, the sisters enter into rivalry over children. And here we see just the dysfunctional way this family works. So Leah has four children, but she's hated by her husband. Rachel is loved by her husband. She has no children. When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister. She said to Jacob, Give me children or I shall die. Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel. And he said, Am I in the place of God who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb? Then she said, Here is my servant Bilhah. Go unto her so that she may give birth. on my behalf that even I may have children through her." So she gave him her servant Bilhah as a wife and Jacob went into her and Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. Then Rachel said, God has judged me and has also heard my voice and given me a son. Therefore she called his name Dan. Rachel's servant Bilhah conceived again and then bore Jacob a second son. Then Rachel said, with mighty wrestling I have wrestled with my sister and I have prevailed. So she called his name Naphtali. When Leah saw that she had ceased bearing children, she took her servant Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife. Then Leah's servant Zilpah bore Jacob a son. And Leah said, Good fortune has come. So she called his name Gad. Leah's servant Zilpah bore Jacob a second son. And Leah said, Happy am I, for women have called me happy. So she called his name Asher. In the days of wheat harvest, Reuben went and found mandrakes in the field and brought them to the mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, Please give me some of your son's mandrakes. But she said to her, Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son's mandrakes also? Rachel said, Then he may lie with you tonight in exchange for your son's mandrakes. When Jacob came from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, You must come in to me, for I have hired you with my son's mandrakes. So he lay with her that night. And God listened to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son. Leah said, God has given me my wages because I gave my servant to my husband. So she called his name Ithakar. And Leah conceived again, and she bore Jacob a sixth son. Then Leah said, God has endowed me with a good endowment. Now my husband will honor me because I have borne him six sons. So she called his name Zebulun. Afterwards, she bore a daughter and called her name Dinah. And God remembered Rachel and God listened to her and opened her womb. She conceived and bore a son and said, God has taken away my reproach. And she called his name Joseph saying, may the Lord add to me another son. Here the dysfunctional covenant family really takes a whole other step forward. God has closed Leah's womb and Rachel as custom, as we saw with Sarah, giving Hagar to Abraham. It would be a custom for the wife to give the maidservant to the husband so that she could bear children for her. So it's custom. It's not a good custom. It's not a biblical custom, but it was custom at that time. And this is what they follow instead of God's word. So they start having a competition. How many children can we have? Who can have the most children? Because somehow this is connected to who will win in the end. Rachel's already won her husband's affection. It really steps up whenever Reuben comes back with his mandrakes and Leah hires out her husband for the night. Think about how perverse this is. She has to hire out her husband for him to lie with her. It's a dysfunctional family. And then really foreshadowing ahead, the final child is born, Joseph. Rachel finally gets her child and it's Joseph, who we will see is really an arrogant punk who brags to his brothers that he's going to rule them one day. The favoritism of Jacob for Joseph leads to further problems. Because he loves Rachel, he loves Joseph more than other children, and this means he loses Joseph. The consequences of sin are great. Let's summarize. The main turning point of this story is Jacob receiving Leah instead of Rachel. He receives a wife he doesn't love. He doesn't care for her. She's always the second class citizen in the home. This is the problem. This is where we see sin. So this is where we're going to see the gospel. Our hearts immediately go out to Leah. She's the victim in the story. She's the ugly one that no one wants. She's the ugly one that her father doesn't care for. She's the one her husband doesn't care for. She really reminds us a bit like Hagar. The one who's cast out and God has to go and give her sweet, caring comfort. The only difference here is really Leah is the head wife in the covenant family. Remember back in that story, Sarah is the lead wife. The child has to come through her. Hagar comes in and she's cast out. Here the lead wife, the first wife, the first lady of the covenant family. She's the one that's the spouse. This is when God enters the story and gives her love beyond comprehension. The love that she does not deserve. Her husband does not love her. So God says, I will love her. He doesn't love her because she's lovely. He loves her because he has the infinite capacity of love. If we're going to identify with anyone in the story, it's Leah. Maybe you're here and you're longing for love. Maybe you're longing for a spouse or for children. Maybe you're an outsider and you're longing for real relationships. Well, that way you respond to her immediate needs. But we all really should relate to Leah because, well really the most important way, we all identify with her because she received love she didn't deserve. We should all identify with Leah because we all, if we're believers in Jesus Christ, we have received a love we do not deserve. You see, we are like her. There's nothing attractive about us that makes God love us. There's nothing that compels God to say, I've got to place my love on that person. No, instead, He sees us as we are. He sees us in our ugliness. And He says, I love them. because I love them. Let's think about the gospel in this passage more explicitly. First, we must see that we are not lovely in our sin. We are ugly to God in our sin. I want to ask you before the sermon, if we were just chit-chatting, I didn't do this, I didn't want to set anybody up, and I ask you, what's the one thing you would change about yourself? What would you have said? my hair, my shoulders, my nose, my eyes, I really hate my elbows. What's the one thing you would have said about yourself that you wanted to change? What's the ugliest feature about you? You see, it's too easy for us to be focused on the immediate problems, the physical problems, the tangible problems. What we need to be focused on is what is really the ugliest thing about us, and that is our sin, our selfishness. Idolatry. A rebellion against God. You see, God in all His holiness, as a just and righteous judge, He looks down on us and we're ignoring Him or we're fighting against Him. Our lives are shaking our fists against Him. Mocking Him. Spitting at Him. We're offensive to God in our sin. There's nothing that should make God want to love us. Think of it this way, friends. I don't know if anyone owns a parrot. I hope you don't have a parrot like this. But pretend you bought a parrot home. And the only thing that parrot ever said were curse words and foul things. And they said them about you and your wife and your children. And then he would break out and he would defecate on the bed and the kitchen table and on your toothbrush. He would hate this bird. The bird is foul. The bird is offensive. The bird wouldn't last long in the goat home. As we get past the humor of the picture, that's what we're like to God. Our words are offensive. Our actions are gross. Our sin is gross and disgusting, and it's way beyond our comprehension to know how offensive our sin is to a holy God. But The central truth of the gospel is that God so loved the world that he sent his son. This is not saying that he was compelled by us in any way. There is not something in us that makes God love us. Rather, it is his infinite capacity to love. This is the beauty of the gospel. This is what makes the gospel unique. We don't have to make ourselves pretty enough for God to love us. He loves us even though we are ugly. The Son came to die for our sins, to take away our ugliness. We don't put makeup on and cover ourselves with perfume and accessorize to make God love us. No. The Son Himself came down to die for us, to take away our offense, to give us His righteousness, His beauty, and that's why God loves us. We must realize, secondly, we must realize that God gives us a love that we do not deserve. I think one of the clearest passages that we see this great declaration is Deuteronomy 7. God says to Israel after the exile, I don't love you because you're bigger. I don't love you because you're stronger. You're not. You're small. You're weak. You're insignificant. Other than the fact that I have chosen to love you. I love you because I love you. What a great, sweet declaration to hear from God. That's exactly the declaration we hear on the cross. We see the Father, unlike Leah's father, we see the Father giving everything to us. We see the Son, the bridegroom, the perfect husband, giving everything to us. Seeking us above Himself. Seeking our needs above His own. God alone can fulfill our need for love. God alone can fulfill that delight we long for. You see, love is manifested in actions. Love is manifested in actions. I can tell my wife I love her, but if I don't care for her, if I don't do anything that proves that love, I'm lying. I'm deceiving her and myself. God shows us He loves us by His actions. God shows us He loves us in what He did in Jesus Christ. You see, what's beautiful of the Gospel We were hopeless. We were ugly. And the son says, I'm going to go down. I'm going to become like them in every way, except for the ugliness, except for sin. He's going to live a righteous life. He's going to be obedient. He's going to live a life that's beautiful to the father. But then he dies. He died in our place. He died because the Father looked at Him as if He were ugly. The Father looked at Him with all of our sin being poured out upon Him. And therefore, God's wrath came down upon Him. The Son who was beautiful, the Son who was righteous, He died as an ugly sinner. So that then, He could give us His righteousness. He could give us His beauty. The offense of our sin was taken away, the disgusting ugliness that we bring to the table. It's taken away because Christ dies for it. And then he hands us his own beauty so that when the father looks at us, he sees the son who is obedient for all of his years. So that's the beauty of the gospel. It's not us being pretty. It's us receiving God's beauty. There's an important question here. How can I experience this? How can I experience this great love? Well, the first thing is we need to take our makeup off. We need to stop masquerading in our self-righteousness. We need to stop trying to cover ourselves in the perfume of performance. We need to quit accessorizing our filthy rags. We cannot deceive God. We need to come to Him. confessing our sin. We need to pray that God will reveal our sin so we can go to the cross with more sin and see the beauty of the Savior and the beauty of the gospel. You see, the more we keep our self-righteousness intact, the more we pretend that we're OK, the more that we pretend that we're not really that sinful, the more we think, oh, well, he's more sinful. I'm OK. The farther you keep yourself from the cross, That's where you experience God. That's where you experience God's love. Your self-righteousness is set forming the love of God or rather your experience of it. Let the love sink in your deepest. Needs let the love of God be your deepest defining characteristic. Let's look at three applications from this gospel we see in the story in Genesis 29 and 30. If we're the first application, we must let his love be our primary identity. We must let his love, the gospel, be our primary identity. We must stop trying to find happiness, the ultimate happiness in anything other than God, because that will always leave us wanting. We should have proper affections for our spouses and our spouse. Sorry, just got done reading about polygamy. You thought that was too funny. We should have proper affections for our spouse and for our children. But they can't be the ultimate desire. Our love, our true love, our absolute love has to be for God. We must love God above everything else. If we love anything else more than God or as much as God, Well, they're idols. We're trying to find too much happiness. Now, what defines you the most? What defines us? You see, we find infinite beauty in Christ, but yet the world tells us what beauty is in a whole other sense. What defines us the most? Is it the way we look? Is it the way we talk? Is it the way the culture perceives us? Or is it the way God perceives us? We have received infinite beauty in Christ, but is that what really defines us the most? You see, we need to make sure we are protecting ourselves from the world. We need to make sure we are not allowing the world to tell us what beauty is, because that definition of beauty will override the gospel definition. What has more influence over you? Is it the gospel or is it the idols of the world? Is it your fellowship of believers? Or is it your worldly friends? See, unless we live in a shell, we need to make sure that the gospel influence is stronger than the worldly influence. We must make sure we are hearing the gospel from our family at church, your family at home, your Christian friends. This is why we come together as Christians in a church, because I need to be hearing from you the gospel. I need to be hearing about my identity from you and you need to be hearing it from each other. We must be reminding one another constantly. This is why we come on Sunday, the day that Christ rose again. We hear it regularly from each other in our specific problems, in our specific temptations, who we really are in the gospel. This is why we covenant together, to remind ourselves who we really are. The second application. We must let God's love counsel us in our pain. Leah longed for her husband's attention. And that was a good thing. She should have received her husband's attention. But the hard truth is that whenever she's in that pain, God doesn't change the problem. God doesn't fix the immediate problem. God doesn't make her pretty. God doesn't fix her face. God doesn't give her a new husband. God doesn't make Jacob love her. He says, I love you. In the midst of her pain, just like God sent Hagar back, He doesn't change the circumstances. He gives you Himself. He gives you His presence. You see, God created us to experience true marital love. God created us to experience children who are obedient. But we live in a fallen world. We live in a world where sin and suffering are the consequences of the fallenness of the sin. We will continue to suffer. We will continue to suffer until Christ comes again or until we die and we receive glorified bodies and we see God face to face. What is amazing in this world that is fallen is that we lose so many good things. But the sweet, good news of the gospel is in the amazing world, we don't get the good things. We get the most important thing. We get the greatest thing. We get God's love. As we wrestle with that. As we wrestle with the desire for a spouse and not having it. As we wrestle with that desire for a godly spouse and not having it. As we wrestle for a desire for children, but not getting them. As we wrestle for obedient children, we don't get them. As we wrestle for loving parents, and maybe we don't have them. We need to make sure that the immediate problem doesn't overwhelm the gospel. See, it's too easy for our sadness. It's too easy for our emotions. It's too easy for our difficulties to lead the way. The gospel must lead our emotions. The gospel must lead our response to difficulty. As we think about it, you know in a movie they'll have the blurred vision angle. So you've got something up close, you've got something in the back, and it'll focus on the thing up close and the thing in the back will be blurry. That's what we're longing for in the Gospel. For the Gospel to be so up front and so close and so clear, that which is in the background, it's still there. It's still real. We're not trying to avoid it and ignore it, but we see it in light of the Gospel. It doesn't overwhelm us. Because our primary vision, our primary focus is on the Gospel. When we suffer, we will ask, how do I know God loves me? When we are in the midst of suffering, we will ask that question. And this is how you know God loves you. Because He's manifested in a way that cannot be denied. The Father sent His Son to die for you. And He is risen again. That is the greatest manifestation of God is love found in 1 John 4. We went through it a few months ago. The greatest manifestation of God's love is the fact that he has died and risen again. We also get the indwelling spirit. That spirit, that third person of the tree that's pointing us to Christ to comfort us, to heal us, to be the balm of the gospel. So that's what God does for us. But as we go through the sadness and discouragement, we have to let that gospel truth be what guides and directs us. We have to stand upon that truth. Our emotions, our sadness, our discouragement, they cannot guide us. Rather, they need to be guided by the gospel, because if we are letting our emotions and our sadness guide us, they're going to guide us away from the gospel. Let me give you an example. Let's think about when a woman miscarries. A couple has a good desire for a child and they lose it. Miscarriages are very common. One out of five pregnancies end in miscarriage. And whenever you're sitting with the gospel, you're letting the gospel guide your questions. You're going to ask, God, why did you open the womb? God, why did you not keep the child after you opened the womb? These are good questions. God wants us to ask those questions. We can look at the Psalms and we can see how honest God wants us to be with them. Those are good questions, but there's where the question stops. God, if you opened the womb and you didn't keep the child, do you love me? So that's where the questioning stops, because we know the answer to the question. Yes, God, you love me because you died for me. You've risen again and you've given me the Holy Spirit. As we wrestle with those questions, we should be open and honest about our sadness. We should be open and honest about our difficulties. We need to let them be led by the gospel truth instead of letting them lead us away from the gospel. I say this with absolute boldness because I believe it's absolutely true, but it's a lot harder to do than it is to say. The beauty of it is God has given us His Spirit. God has given us the same power that rose Christ from the dead, says Paul in Romans 8.11, for us to be persevering in the midst of these difficulties. Finally, our last application. We must love those who are ugly to us. We must love those who are ugly to us. We must love those who are not attractive to us. We must commit ourselves to believers who may not appear to us to be the kind of people we want to spend our time with. What unites us is not a social status. It's not our working conditions. It's not who we are, what we've done. It's what God has done for us. What unites us as believers is the fact that we are all God's children in Christ. The Father is our Father. That makes us brothers and sisters. That's what unites and commits us together as a church. We need to gather together to be committed to striving for godliness together in the gospel. We need to be committed to loving those that are unlovely because of the gospel. Now, you don't join a church because you say, if I join, they've got to put up with my ugliness. It's kind of the backwards perspective. Alright? You may do that, and we will have to. But you join a church and say, I'm going to come in and I know I'm bringing my own ugliness, but I'm going to come in and I'm going to be an agent of grace. I'm going to be quick to forgive in the ugliness. I'm going to come in and I'm going to know that everyone else around me is a sinner. And I'm going to be an agent of grace that models and exemplifies the gospel. And when people are ugly to me, I'm going to try to show them beauty of the gospel. As we covenant together, As we think about our commitment to one another, it's a commitment to correct one another. It's a commitment that we would be able to build up and encourage one another and let the Spirit use our words to convict one another. As we come together for gathering as a bunch of sinners, offensive to God, but caught up in the gospel and called to love one another with a brotherly love. Friends, as we conclude, The hard truths. We're ugly in our sin. But God loves us. Because He said, I'm going to send my Son down to die for you. I'm going to send my Son down and He's going to take away the ugly offense of sin. And He's going to give you the beauty of His righteousness. That is the good news of the Gospel. Let's pray. We praise You, God, for Your good news. For Your message which heals us, corrects us, guides us, converts us. I pray now that we will be convicted, Lord, to let the Gospel be the most identifying mark about us. Let the Gospel be clear in our minds and our hearts. Let our every affection be first and foremost for You. Lord, I pray that as we seek you in the midst of this fallen world, suffering the consequences of sin, pray that you will comfort us. You will heal us. You will apply your sweet balm. You will send your spirit to illuminate the beauty of the gospel and our great hope of seeing you face to face. Lord, I pray for us as a church that we would not hide away our sin. But we'll be a people that come eagerly seeking to have Your Word confront our sin, illuminate our sin, and we'll be quick to repent so that You are glorified as a God who loves us even though we are sinners. In Your name we pray, Amen.